


Messages

by Asidian



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Coping, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 22:59:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10796535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asidian/pseuds/Asidian
Summary: For a minute, he can't possibly imagine why he's awake. He's always slept through the night, ever since he was a child. His father used to tell stories about him as a baby: the way he wouldn't make so much as a whimper after they set him down in the cradle for the night. The way his father would wander the Citadel halls, down from his own room and into baby Noct's, just to make certain he was still all right in the wake of all that quiet.His father.All at once, the reason that Noct's awake at 4 am comes to him.





	Messages

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the lovely anon on the meme who asked for:
> 
> I'd love to read something that deals with Noct's grief over the loss of his dad. How he'd been expecting his dad to die soon, but not this way, and he's angry at himself for not thinking of this as a possibility. 
> 
> And maybe he has a single selfie from years ago of the two of them on his phone. Or maybe there's a voice mail that he has to keep renewing so it doesn't get deleted. Or maybe he has nothing. Maybe he sees a picture of his dad in an old newspaper article and straight-up steals it.

Noctis comes awake in the early morning cold, and at first, there's nothing but the sound of Gladio snoring to tell him where he is.

He lies blinking into the darkness – takes in the musty scent of his sleeping bag, thick cotton and goose down, before realizing that beneath the cushioning, there's the rock of a haven. He can feel the shape of it, through the fabric.

Blindly, Noctis reaches out for his phone. He discovers the hard plastic shape of it and taps the screen to life – reads the numbers there that proclaim it 4 am.

For a minute, he can't possibly imagine why he's awake. He's always slept through the night, ever since he was a child. His father used to tell stories about him as a baby: the way he wouldn't make so much as a whimper after they set him down in the cradle for the night. The way his father would wander the Citadel halls, down from his own room and into baby Noct's, just to make certain he was still all right in the wake of all that quiet.

His father.

All at once, the reason that Noct's awake at 4 am comes to him.

It slips in around the edges: some nebulous sense of images flickering by while he slept, coalescing as soon as he thinks too hard about them. He remembers the dream, in bits and pieces – remembers sitting with his father at the stiffly formal dining table in the Citadel, ten feet of space between them and breakfast spread out before them, toast and jam and coffee. They'd been talking, he thinks. Noct can't remember about what.

That's all it is: breakfast. But suddenly, the sleeping bag feels constraining. Suddenly, Noct can't stand to be in the tent anymore.

He struggles his way free from the fabric like it's suffocating him – unzips the tent flap and staggers out into the cold night air. The fire has long-since faded to smoldering embers. The remnants glimmer in the fire pit, just a faint reminder of warmth. Most of the light now is from the glow of the protective runes etched in blue on the stone of the ground.

The first breath of fresh air is bracing; the second grounds him. By the third, his throat is unaccountably tight, and Noctis scrubs his palm over his face, willing the sensation to subside.

He stands there for a long time, waiting for it to stop so that he can go back to bed.

But it doesn't, and he's cold, and finally Noctis gives up and goes to sit in his chair. He feeds the remainder of the fire a few careful twigs – blows it back into life, and then gives it a wider log, as well. His thoughts keep drifting, like they don't want to stay still. He has a lot of practice, lately, at not thinking.

When at last he's settled and the flames lick at their new sacrifice of wood, though, his thoughts come back around to the dream, and then pick at the corners of all the rest of it.

He's always known his father would die.

Perhaps it wasn't the first time he saw the Crystal, at four years old, peering over the railing at the swirling colors, small hand enfolded in his father's much larger one. It must not have been long after that, though. He can't remember the conversation – can scarcely conceive of how his father must have worded it – but he knows that he came away from that encounter with a knowledge that's stayed with him all the rest of his life.

The Crystal is a grand and important thing. It serves the people, as does the king. To channel the Crystal's magic – to do his duty for the kingdom – is no easy feat. It wears on the body, until at last the body is gone, and the new king must take up the mantle.

So he's known, in some manner or another, that his father would die. He's been aware of it, since his youngest years. He's seen it draw nearer, as the Crystal saps his father's vitality, greying his hair and stealing the strength from his leg. He's seen it in every trembling step, and the walking cane that appeared by his father's side, more and more frequently, as time slipped by.

What he didn't know is that it was going to be so soon.

What he didn't know is that standing on the steps of the Citadel that morning, listening to his father tell him to walk tall, would be the end. It seems unfair. His father knew that he was saying goodbye. Noct thought he'd have another chance.

Noctis sits there, staring into the fire, for a long time.

He doesn't let himself think about what he might have said, if he'd had the warning. That path is dark and jagged, and there are rocks underneath the bridge, and he's walked it twenty times since he received the news.

Instead, he taps his phone into life – watches the screen flare white as the manufacturer's logo appears.

After a minute, when it's ready, he punches a number in and hits dial. Then he adds a password, and hits pound, and then waits.

"You have no new messages," says a woman's voice, mechanical and distant. "End new messages."

Then she says, "You have one saved message. First message."

And then Noct's father begins to speak.

His voice is the way Noct remembers it: deep and soothing, perpetually unruffled. There is an elegant edge to it, something that comes of being in the public eye, but there is something else, beneath that. There is something warmer and more personal, that hint of amusement always present when his father told a terrible, straight-faced pun or read Noctis stories when he was still just a child.

Noct's father says, "You're likely home by now, but when you start to panic because you can't find your car keys, rest assured: I have them here. I'll send Ignis by with them tomorrow." There's a pause, then, the space of several seconds. "It was good to see you, Noctis."

Noct knows when this was recorded. It was the night of the king's 50th birthday. Noctis had come for the celebrations – the larger public one, which took up most of the afternoon, and then the smaller private one, after, where the king sat with his son and blew out the candles on his cake and thanked Noctis for what was, in retrospect, the entirely thoughtless gift of a new set of bedroom slippers.

Noctis had stayed until late in the evening. Ignis had driven him home, and he'd gone straight to bed, flopping into the covers unshowered.

In the morning, he'd discovered the message – hit the wrong button when he meant to delete it.

Now, it's the only recording he has left of his father's voice.

Yes, he could find television footage. There's plenty of clips of his father talking to reporters for the evening news. But those are different. Those are for everyone, and this is only for Noct.

"End of saved message," says the mechanical woman's voice. "To delete, press 7. To play again, press 1."

Noctis stares into the campfire, watching the flames slowly transform the wood that they cradle into ash. He thinks about the Crystal's light, and how one day it will steal his life, too. He thinks about whether he will see his father when that happens, and what things he might have said on the steps of the Citadel, if he'd only known it was his last chance.

Noct taps 1, and he listens to his father's voice.


End file.
